Salem crime rates

About Salem crime rates

The crime rate in Salem is considerably higher than the national average across all communities in America from the largest to the smallest, although at 46 crimes per one thousand residents, it is not among the communities with the very highest crime rate. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Salem is 1 in 22. Based on FBI crime data, Salem is not one of the safest communities in America. Relative to Oregon, Salem has a crime rate that is higher than 87% of the state's cities and towns of all sizes.

How does the crime rate in Salem compare to similar sized communities across America? When NeighborhoodScout compared Salem with other communities its size, we found that the crime rate was near the average for all other communities of similar size. So, whether Salem's crime rate is high or low compared to all places in the US, when we control for population size and compare it to places that are similar in size, it is near the middle of the pack in crime rate; not much more or less dangerous, and about what we would expect from the statistics.

The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined.

Now let us turn to take a look at how Salem does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Salem.

From our analysis, we discovered that violent crime in Salem occurs at a rate higher than in most communities of all population sizes in America. The chance that a person will become a victim of a violent crime in Salem; such as armed robbery, aggravated assault, rape or murder; is 1 in 307. This equates to a rate of 3 per one thousand inhabitants.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Salem is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Salem, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 24, which is a rate of 42 per one thousand population.

Importantly, we found that Salem has one of the highest rates of motor vehicle theft in the nation according to our analysis of FBI crime data. This is compared to communities of all sizes, from the smallest to the largest. In fact, your chance of getting your car stolen if you live in Salem is one in 244.